News

Use iPod, go to Jail?

By Dennis Lloyd ● Monday, August 2, 2004

“That’s the message from the “Save the iPod’’ campaign. Holmes Wilson, an organizer of the Web-based movement, warns that the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act now pending in Congress threatens to silence the popular music player. In other words, your right to bear beats is in danger. [...]

The Induce Act would give the music industry and other copyright holders new legal grounds to sue any business that profits from encouraging people to illegally distribute songs, movies, software, games and other copyrighted works. The proposed law targets popular online file-swapping services such as Kazaa.”

Comments

41

To make things worse, it’s being touted mainly as a way to save the morals of children by making it illegal to ‘induce” them from D/L illegal music. What’s scarry is that in an election year, anyone voting against it will have to defend themselves at the polls. I can see it now - would you vote for this person after voting against a child protection law? Wake up folks and stop the RIAA from using their Millions$ to buy politicians!!!

Posted by Pete on August 2, 2004 at 6:36 PM (CDT)

42

Blown out of proportion and taken way too literally, and out of context.

Posted by studogvetmed in Loveland, CO on August 2, 2004 at 6:44 PM (CDT)

43

Oh plz quit worrying people. This is rediculious and will never happen. They might get to ban Kazaa but they r in europe and if they even manage to ban it, a new P2P service will continue to grow grow and grow…such as limewire for instance.

Posted by Steve on August 2, 2004 at 7:19 PM (CDT)

44

Nothing like seeing my hard earned tax dollers at work on some stupid crap like this. God Bless America, right.

Posted by Jesse on August 2, 2004 at 8:28 PM (CDT)

45

I have got to agree with the general concensus here. This bill is so broad that the fine folks of the RPA/MPAA will try to use it to stamp out ANY multimedia device that will not play by their rules. Will it make ipods and CD-Rs illegal? Not likely, but it will be used as leverage in the courts and waste the money of the taxpayers (Hint: Our hard earned tax dollars at work). Here is an example as posted at www.doom9.net a site dedicated to legal backups of DVDs that we have purchased and have a right to make a backup copy in case of a fire or some other disasterous event.

“So the mystery product that got chipset maker ESS dragged to court is the Aspire Digital AD-8000, a DVD recorder with a secondary disc drive to record your DVDs directly to (S)VCD format, as well as record TV programming and anything else you can connect to the device via analogue connection. I still don’t get what the chipset maker has to do with all this.. could they just be a scapegoat because the MPAA and DVD CCA could not sue the actual manufacturer?”

This was posted 7/30/04

Posted by cadman83 on August 2, 2004 at 8:31 PM (CDT)

46

Schiano, I stand by my remark. When the US Dollar took a huge dive because of the war, the Australian Dollar actually increased in value. This tells me that other countries (some if not all) will profit from a weakening of the USA.

Posted by praenuntius in Canberra, Australia on August 2, 2004 at 8:39 PM (CDT)

47

I don’t like any of it. I have purchased tons of music off of itunes and anytime a dvd comes out that is worth watching more than once i will purchase it. I may go to the theaters and see a movie then download it off of a p2p network, but i ALWAYS buy the dvd when it comes out as i believe in supporting a good film. What do I do if I download a promising bit of music off of the net and like it? I purchase their music off of itunes or buy the cd locally and if I do not like it I delete it off of my iPOD. Why?? Because if I purchase the CD or the DVD and don’t like it then I am stuck with it. As far as I am concerned the RIAA/MPAA can stop quoting their questionable polls/estimates of how much money they are losing.

Posted by cadman83 on August 2, 2004 at 8:51 PM (CDT)

48

According to legal analisys I could get my hands on so far, the most scariest was the one that concluded that this INDUCE act would indeed overturn the Betamax decision, which allowed all of us to make backup copies of our VHS movies (some of you might remember when the VHS and Betamax tapes came out and home copying became a fad, MPAA tried to shut it down by suing all recorder manufacturers).

If that is tha case, that you can say good-bye to backing your CDs, and ripping them to MP3s. Likely iTunes+iPod would stay legal, but CD burning possibly not. CD ripping definitely not. iPods will not be illegal per say, but if you want to listen to your CDs you will need to buy them at iTunes. If you scratch up your CD, buy it again. Media centers are all gone, DVD to VHS copying is illegal as well.

I myself a liberal, pretty much, urge aboth sides to contect their own senators, to tell them this cannot pass. Be it -R or -D supporting it. We need to change theit minds. Mr. Orrin Hatch (Utah-R) has tried to hurt the innovation in this country more than ANY other member of senate. His top contributor is Disney. He is one who also intoduced and supported the copyright extension (so called Mickey-bill) which robbed all of us, the public. Just because the idiotic mouse ears would become public domain, the copyright owner bribes the powerful senior senator, and robs the unsuspecting public… Anyway, off-topic (-1).

Posted by pbox on August 2, 2004 at 9:08 PM (CDT)

49

You can have my iPod when you pry it from my COLD, DEAD FINGERS.

Posted by willum on August 2, 2004 at 9:45 PM (CDT)

50

I dont see this happening. The combined legal resources of Apple, Sony, Microsoft, HP, Dell…..(list goes on) will get its way. the one thing about this country is that corporations run things and if they see a threat they will team up and make every effort to remove it.

Posted by Tripledeuce on August 2, 2004 at 9:52 PM (CDT)

51

im gonna hide my NEW 4g 20!!!! in my gun cabinet under my dual cassette recorder that also almost brought the music industry to its knees when it first came out.MUHAHAHAHAHA

Posted by mak10 on August 2, 2004 at 10:03 PM (CDT)

52

Let it pass.

Apple will never let the iPod go down without a fight. Never. The iPod is a cultrual icon now. Its been in every magazine, on every news show. Most people in America know what an iPod is. And over 3 Million of them love the iPod. So let the RIAA sue Apple. It will only get more attention(and bad press) for the RIAA.

And Apple wouldn’t be in a one man battle against the RIAA. Every tech company would be forced to take notice, and they would all help Apple.

Who should we pay more attention to: Entertainment, or the tech industry which we rely on every day in this country?

Posted by Ryan on August 2, 2004 at 10:18 PM (CDT)

53

I only wish it was only the riaa that was backing this bill. Unfortuantely, the mpaa is also backing it. I hope it doesnt get passed, along with the pirate act. These acts are destroying america as we know it. This has to stop.

Posted by acemilo on August 2, 2004 at 10:43 PM (CDT)

54

Yes this has to stop and unfortunatley with 85% of the American public voting for democrats and republicans it is not going to stop. We need people in office that wouldnt mind taking a 75% pay cut if it meant they could better serve their country.

Posted by tussery on August 2, 2004 at 10:52 PM (CDT)

55

This yet one more reason to vote Bush out of office.

Posted by Zo on August 2, 2004 at 11:15 PM (CDT)

56

If that passed and was used against every company possible in multimillion or multi-billion dollar lawsuits, the U.S. economy would cripple into another Great Depression because so much of it is based on technology companies.

This would also make computers illegal, seeing as how they can be used to transfer pirated copyrighted material just as easily.

Posted by wtf on August 2, 2004 at 11:41 PM (CDT)

57

Wtf, your right on the money. It is very feasable that computers could be illegal under this act. A few months ago, the govt started banning the export I believe of intel chips greater than something like 3 gigahertz under the assumption that they can be used to create atomic bombs. I seem to remember something in the 40’s called the manhatten project, back before computers were even useful and a standard pocket calculator today blows away. I really wanna know if the ppl in congress are actually this stupid or are just being bought.

Posted by acemilo on August 3, 2004 at 12:31 AM (CDT)

58

Clinton signed the DMCA. Our rights have already been killed by it. Don’t let this new bill kill even more rights.